


To Whoever It May Concern

by MILKYWON



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jaehyun is a Good Person, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Taeyong is trying, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-12 23:19:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14737689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MILKYWON/pseuds/MILKYWON
Summary: Taeyong really tries his best to get used to the world Jaehyun had pulled him into. Tried stacking empty bottles and promises for Jaehyun to weakly support it the best he could, especially with the way Taeyong kept stacking, and stacking.





	To Whoever It May Concern

**Author's Note:**

> word vomit i won’t look back on.

He was coming back to a place he hoped to never see again.

 

A place filled with anguish, fear, want. Taeyong never wanted to be there again. He didn’t want to be stuck in a place he knew he’d never find his way out of. Not to a place where all he’ll ever find is dust, remains, what could’ve been. He isn’t going to go out of his way just to get himself lost somewhere that took years until something— _someone_ helped him out of it. He isn’t going through that pain. Through the desolate feeling of isolation, hunger, need.

 

He isn’t going to a place where all he’ll ever think about is most likely toxic, cruel. Where every thought is forcing him to say it if he wanted to feel sheltered, whole. Not again, no more. But he’s being stranded somewhere new and he’d rather be stuck in the previous state. He’s being dropped off like a child on their first day of preschool. A hand holding on to theirs to only be pushed away and told to try their best. And Taeyong really is trying. He’s really trying to get himself back to where he originally was before everything went back to shit. He wasn’t left in a bad place, a bad mentality, but he never saw the bright side of anything.

 

“There isn’t anything I can do anymore,” Taeyong remembers someone saying. “I can’t help you Taeyong if you can’t help yourself.” And he just wants to say he’d try. That he’d attempt at getting better. But the pile of dust that wouldn’t even touch surface before being swatted away, the unfinished dinner, the rise in water prices is getting worst. Jaehyun knew that. Taeyong knew that. But what were they both supposed to expect when the older wasn’t used to changes? To something new?

 

Taeyong was forced out of a home he was so used to and put into domesticity. To a place where he doesn’t have to pretend like he doesn’t exist just so he won’t get hurt for it. What was Jaehyun supposed to expect when he took Taeyong by both his wounded hands and pulled him into a slow paced life, where everything was too perfect. So perfect that Taeyong didn’t know what to do in it.

 

Taeyong isn’t used to back hugs while he’s cooking. No, but he’s used to the piercing stares behind him and a hand already raised to swat at him every time he does something wrong, no matter how small the problem may be. He isn’t used to being told that he’s doing a good job, that someone is glad that he’s here. He’s used to people telling him how everything he does is a mistake, that he’s a mistake.

 

Taeyong will probably never get used to it all. He’s going to crawl back into a life where he’s forced and ordered to do something because it gives him a purpose. He doesn’t feel useless every time there’s nothing to do, when it’s strangely calm. How was Taeyong supposed to deal with this? The feeling of not having to hide whenever someone came too close or when someone came back home.

 

Taeyong doesn’t understand the new morning routines. He will never know why Jaehyun says _‘I love you’_ instead of _'good morning'_ everyday. Why he looks so happy to see Taeyong in his second worst state, awake. He doesn’t deserve this.

 

It’s so scary when Taeyong finally gives up and lets down his walls. To invite the peace that is Jaehyun. But as slowly as he started to warm up to him, the faster it took for Jaehyun to understand that there’s probably no saving Taeyong at this point. That the red skin from scrubbing too hard whenever he showers and the blunt fingernails from biting shows that there will always be a time where the older can’t deal with any of this. So Jaehyun drifts away.

 

Taeyong was so scared when Jaehyun all of a sudden was more careful with how he approached him. He was so confused when the younger hesitated before touching him like Taeyong hadn’t just stayed in the shower for an hour and washed and scrubbed and cleansed like he was and will forever be filthy. How he smiled softly and said quietly that he loved him. That nothing ever reached, never felt right. Taeyong spends hours cleaning and fixing that he doesn’t see the increasing disappointment in the younger’s face.

 

Maybe this is what Taeyong was so scared of everyday. Commitment.

 

Scared of having to give his all to someone that most likely wasn’t going to stay forever. Taeyong knows that no one would ever stay regardless of who the person is. Taeyong knows that from the times his mom or dad would walk out without a second thought, or how his home, no matter how broken, was torn down until the base.

 

So Taeyong expects a forever from giving his own. Expects something from trusting someone so quickly, for being able to say _‘I love you’_ every night instead of a rushed _‘Good night’_ because it was a big step for him. It was such a large jump from the many stories of anguish he was stuck upon. He expects nothing else but love. That this last chapter is just him with the happy ending he’s always told he wouldn’t get. That when he jumps all the way to the epilogue, it ends with what everyone writes and hopes for.

 

For once in his life he wants a broken author to vomit and spill words that paints a picture of what happens in a creative person’s tainted mind. He’s come to learn that an author only writes from the darkness of their minds instead of the excruciating pain and sorrowness of their hearts because most often than not, when an author speaks from that pain they’ve been holding in for so long, it’s a suicide note. He comes to learn from his own suicide notes that everytime he writes, it’s always different.

 

 _“To mom and dad who will never read this…”_ When he was only just begun his teenage years. The hinge of the front door creaking from the force and the constant leaving signalling that he could do it.

 

 _“To the man that who will never read this…”_ Back when he had just been pushed out of his own relationship where all he was doing was being guilt into the pain that gave pleasure only to the man above him.

 

 _“To the man that will beat my dead body…”_ The first time he had ever been involved in a love so cruel. So selfish. Where he’d be forced to stay until the latter got bored himself.

 

And finally.

 

 _“To the man that should never have discovered this letter…”_ The last thing Taeyong would want is for Jaehyun to find him dead after months of rehabilitation. Months of work and progress down the clogged drain of a red stained bathtub. Months of nothing but love and care stuffed into an empty pill bottle, previous remnants gone. Everything Taeyong had so clearly worked hard on gone into the piles of dirty laundry that Taeyong still needed to wash from the previous stains of nothing.

 

So if Taeyong is able to withhold his own long awaited death, Jaehyun can stay a little longer.

 

Taeyong has learned to be selfish after years of being around the human embodiments of it. He can tug on Jaehyun’s scratched hands hold it in place with his almost broken ones.

 

“I hope you never find happiness after this, Jung Jaehyun!” Taeyong yelled at the other side of the room, too far from the younger who was already one step out the door, everything they had built and made stuffed into suitcases ready to be sent into a new home. A better home. Most likely with someone that didn’t have a drawer filled with empty bottles of vegetable drinks, that didn’t demand this health cleanse, this diet.

 

“You’re going to meet someone, someone that’ll take you away from this,” Taeyong yelled and pointed to the spotless house, save for the empty bottle of energy drinks on the table. “And I don’t want that. I don’t want you to be happy anymore, I don’t want you to try because it’ll take you away from here.” Taeyong tried to take steps closer to the younger, who only backed away slowly.

 

“If you try to be happy,” Taeyong said, gulping. His posture now sloppy and lazy as the deteriorating determination is slowly taking its toll. “You’ll forget me, the me that loves you.” Taeyong said shakily. Every short breath feeling like a sharp thorn of a beautiful rose driving into him, he can’t breathe without crying and he doesn’t want to feel like this. He can't see anything but the way the floor starts to shift, the walls start to stretch. The room is spinning and all he sees are past houses of everyone he had to leave behind.

 

“Goodbye Taeyong,” Jaehyun said finally, ignoring everything Taeyong had said to him, yelled to him. “Maybe one day, when you’re better, we can meet again. But that’s not now. Maybe that won’t be ever.” Jaehyun finished coldly, a gaze pointed to the floor. Taeyong flinches when the final door has been shut, too loud, too hard. Taeyong is looking at this mess. The mess that somehow got worse and worse. With shaky limbs, he picks up the empty bottles, throwing them away. Throwing everything away quickly, something pushing him that Jaehyun would come back, that the younger wouldn’t want to see this mess. Taeyong’s mind has made Jaehyun into another monster he would always look out for.

 

Taeyong sits and sits, waiting for the door to open. A cold mug of coffee on the table, filled and refilled, until it isn’t anymore. Empty bottles of fruit juice and pills decorate his table.

 

_“I never meant for anyone to see me in such a state…”_

 

The next time Jaehyun meets Taeyong—

_“But I don’t think I’m able to go back to where I was.”_

 

He doesn’t.


End file.
